


The Other Side

by focusedfun



Category: Old Man's War (Series) - John Scalzi
Genre: Gender or Sex Swap, Genderfluid Character, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:15:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22133920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/focusedfun/pseuds/focusedfun
Summary: From the novel Old Man's War (John Scalzi), this is a John/Alan fic. I'm not entirely convinced anyone would look for this pairing, but it was fun to write!Also, Alan isn't dead here and had changed a lot since John had last met him. Or did he?
Relationships: John/Alan, Tom/Alan





	The Other Side

John was ready to ship to another battle, and then another after being rescued from Coral, until one day he'd be blown apart, eaten alive or starve to death on a colony far-far away.

He saved Jane's life and got promoted, and there were talks to place a realborn to every Special Force squad like John, but he didn't want to stay. Jane might have looked like his wife, might have had the same voice as his wife, and sometimes, even the same personality, but still felt like a stranger.

John had to admit that when he saved Jane and succeeded against all odds, he didn't feel any relief. He had to accept he wasn't the same man as he was when he spent 48 years married to this woman, and that Jane was only a possible outcome of Kathy's gene pool, but not the same person.

There were no fairy tales with people getting back from death, and that's why John made sure to keep Harry and Jessie out of harm's way. They meant more to him than Jane, the only remainder of the Old Farts squad.

Being in a young green body wasn't the same as being mentally young.

He tried to better his Karma by doing a good job, and more often than not, his wits and his self-sacrifice often in the face of death didn't go unnoticed.

He was a celebrated hero, but he didn't feel like the persona reflected his own humble - almost suicidal - self, so he was forced to keep to himself.

His 10 years of service just passed him by in a blink. That's not to say there weren't harsh and hard days, or wars he didn't think he'd make it.

He managed to get by because when there were _only_ bad and worse days, easy to accept if you know nothing else anymore. 

And suicide seemed such a waste if there were so many aliens, dangers and unforeseen ways to go, surrounding him like a cocoon of comfort. He didn't want to go off without meaning, at least. 

Saving one person would have been worth it, but as his luck would have it, he somehow was always saved thereafter and didn't get to rest just yet.

It wasn't a question to keep on fighting even after the ten-year contract, and this time around, John got lucky enough, when he saved the whole crew of CDF ship, and only his life was wasted in the process.

Only, then he woke up again, in the best body CDF could supply him with - as a Special Forces recruit. 

Which was absurd, because he had his memories, and his memories of his death just as his first body switch, and the doctor told him not even CDF with their special alien tech could bring back someone dead.

And no one would tell him anything.

When he was told the Commander herself made his return possible, and after he managed to better adjust she'd want to talk to him, John was under the impression it was Jane, not getting how he didn't want to be with her anymore.

But it wasn't, which was both a relief and a scary thing.

"If we can transfer consciousness to anybody we want," the Commander didn't even introduce herself, just started speaking to him through BrainPal. "You might be wondering why can't we save all that information as a backup, and do the cloning again if a recruit dies. We are experiencing a shortcut of good soldiers, and retraining a bunch of old men is not effective given that our rate of death is 75% in their first year."

Old John would have made a joke about it, but this John just stood there listening. He was alive again, for the second time, and there was nothing funny about it.

"It's CDF's protocol to use the bodies of fallen but very promising soldiers again," the Commander went on. "As a Special Force officer. Once made them special might as well help them again. And even if not so, we already have their permission to use their genetic materials, so we can have more bodies in the fields, free."

"I didn't know that," John noted, but it made sense. If CDF bought back dead old people as zombies, why would they stop there, and bring back their trained soldiers the same way?

"No jokes, John, I'm almost worried about your mental state now," the Commander said, and John looked at her. Did she know him before? He was sure he'd never seen this woman, yet there was almost fondness in her voice.

"My sense of humor might have not made the transition to yet another body," John just noted, curious to know what happened with him, yet rather not give this fact away, afraid that he'd never get to know if he did.

"Your sense of humor will only be dead when you are, maybe probably not even then," the woman just smirked at him, but then got back to her long explanation. "Which brings me to the next topic at hand. Not that I expect this to surprise you much, but you aren't dead."

"I've noticed," John just agreed.

"But I'm sure it came to you as a shock at first. That's why we keep such recruits of Special Forces separate until a psychological evaluation shows they accepted this fact."

"And here I thought I was special," John said.

"Oh you are," the Commander noted jokingly. "I had to wait 8 years for your first reincarnation to die to get you in my squad, that's like elephant years to a dog, but hey, you finally made it."

"I wish I shared your enthusiasm," John completely honest told her. "Or understand better, for that matter."

"Your green squad was the first where they didn't delete the maps of your brains once the transfer was made. And every one of you who died a heroic death, they transferred to a new Special Forces body, patching their personalities together from the initial brain when you arrived and the memories you had when your BrainPal was in. You only had to die and do it with honor to be reborn once again."

"And you heard legends about me that weren't even half-true, but wanted me on your squad, and only now do you realize that I'm not the person you thought me to be?" John guessed, almost happy to disappoint. "Waiting for someone else to die is rude, by the way."

"Waiting to meet them again isn't," the Commander said. "You still don't get it, do you, John? Many of your friends were reviewed as well."

"Most of my friends died a long time ago," John said, almost convinced that the Commander only tried to sell him his new life now. "I'm almost sure none of my real friends made it here, or they would have reached out to me."

"Well, do you consider Old Farts your friends? Maggie has been dying for you to join her, no pun intended, and even Tom asked me just yesterday about you. Since you were CDF's hero, who chose to serve even after the 10 years have passed, we were sure we'd get you sooner or later, but couldn't just tell you to go and… _die,_ so we had to wait."

"We?"

"I'm Alan," the Commander just said.

"Yeah, and I'm an expert in Consu physics," John automatically muttered back via BrainPal.

Alan was the only one of the Old Farts who was stationed with him, and as long as he lived, he was John's not only best friend but his better self.

"I didn't know any human or CDF personnel could grasp their physics, and believe me, it wasn't the lack of trying on my part, that I can't either," the Commander said, and it felt weird. Alan did have a fascination with physics and was the very first person who told John how Skipping worked, but all that seemed several lifetimes ago.

"Even if I believed Alan, the real Alan, who was my friend, and not someone close was alive, he didn't look anything like you," John pointed out. If he could have Alan of all people back, he'd cry his eyes out on his friend's shoulder, no matter the shame that came with such acts.

"Even if I told you our new systems that arrange the bodily transport take it into account if one was let's say gay, and felt more feminine in their entire life?" the Commander just laughed. "Do you think the Colonies after creating a system to even transfer death consciousness couldn't change my clone's DNA to differ only by gender when they can give us artificial skin, blood and Cat eyes?"

It was unthinkable. The Old Farts were John's real family and losing any of them felt like losing a limb, and John knew exactly how that felt from experience. But Alan dying in front of him was even worse than that.

"I know, now you're thinking I'm much more to your taste in this body than my previous one, my overly straight friend," the Commander just laughed. "But let me warn you: I never looked at you that way, only as my best friend, and I don't want that to ever change, not even if we might be immortal, as the present state of affairs."

John just stared. He began to look at the Commander expecting to find nothing, but then he almost immediately saw the similarities between Alan and the Commander. Same lips, same gestures, even the familiarity she addressed John with all along, and which he found creepy without knowing who she was.

There were signs it could be Alan, which he could grasp with his brain, but his mind seemed to separate from his emotions. Which were in disbelief. He mourned for Alan, even lost a sense of will to live after his friend died, to learn 8 years after that he had lived?

"How old are you, Commander?" he asked.

"I'm over 8, practically a Dinosaur," the Commander just smiled.

But that was 8 years John kept mourning a person that he shouldn't have to if this was truly Alan.

"And you couldn't pass me a written note or something that you were safe? Hell, we're talking over BrainPal right now-"

"You didn't have the clearance," the Commander interrupted. "And I didn't want you to be reckless with your life. In some cases, even our technology of Immortalism won't work if your death is near a Black Hole for instance, and your BrainPal is exterminated but couldn't transmit the last of your memories out. If I had contacted you, and you'd run into your death, not only would I risk your death deemed heroic to make the transfer, but also losing a John Perry that would at all remember me. Well, the old me at least. And the Old Farts. I don't think it's a secret we always thought of you as our leader."

"Says the Commander of the Special Forces," John said, thinking after joining CDF how often he'd found himself in commanding positions when he wasn't aiming for it.

"Time passed and I figured I better do something with my immortality. I also wanted to be here until you arrive, and for Immotalism, you'd have to only die heroic deaths," the Commander said. "So besides enjoying the fact how easy it is for me now to pick up men, and studying alien physics, I volunteered for battles where there wasn't much of a fighting chance, and sometimes came out on top despite the odds by luck, but you know how it is. Mr. 'Whatever-you-heard-of-me-must-be-exaggerated'."

"How many times did you die?" John asked, not ready to completely accept his new situation yet, but also curious.

"You could say it's my 8th reincarnation. Was I a cat, I'd be worried right about now," the Commander just smiled, which John find himself returning without thinking about it.

_She_ seemed not only very much share the same characteristics as Alan, but also had a bit more of general content in her, that not even Alan had back 8 years ago. John wondered if it was only because of the new body she received, or because of how death seemed much further away with the new technology and policy.

Or if she changed, spending all those years in space, them adding to her, instead of taking their toll, as they seemed to in John's case.

Then, by the time she invited John for dinner, and they were joined by Tom and Maggie, Tom going back for seconds, it wasn't so hard to believe. It was so good, almost too good to be true that by the end of their dinner, John was almost discontent with himself that he couldn't manage to die earlier.

Not that his job description changed, or the Special Forces Old Farts group could meet more often than before, rarely having enough free time and will to message each other, but every other difficult mission John survived, he got back to the base and had a celebratory dinner with the Commander (the only meal she didn't skip, even with her busy routine), and they sometimes ended up talking.

Sometimes they were looking at Physics together.

Later, Alan told him he begun assigning new constellations as they were seen from their Base, instead of the ones they had left back on Earth. It didn't have any specific use, but John didn't care when Alan instructed him to gaze into a telescope and kept talking.

John could have listened to her for ages talking, of whatever, really talking, and even through BrainPal.

The only uncomfortable thing for John was how he always treated Alan as his best friend, and now the Commander herself told him she wasn't interested in him, yet John's body didn't listen to him when he tried to talk it down. 

He lusted over Alan, which he found difficult to hide, distracting to feel, and guilty to only feel it now when the person behind the curtain has never changed.

Yet, it was a bodily response. It didn't help that they often flirted with each other, which shouldn't have meant anything, and for the Commander, it didn't because she kept changing her boyfriends at a steady, 2to 3 months pace, but for John, it grew troublesome.

If Alan was a woman, John would probably have sex with her at one time like he had Jessie and Maggie, which was supposed to bring people closer, yet with the two women he did it with it was the direct opposite.

It built a wall between them because there were things they'd have to tiptoe around, like when he met now the new Maggie, and it took Maggie half a year to admit to him that she was seeing somebody, afraid she'll hurt John's feelings.

Sex changed relationships and could destroy a possibility to share a deeper connection, the one which John had with Alan, for instance.

That's why he was so fucked now, with Alan morphing into someone he would have wanted to take to bed, suddenly. Their connection was already built and was deeper than John had with any of the Old Farts, serving their most difficult years in space together.

And if they had sex now, and even if the Commander would have had it with John, which she didn't seem so eager to try, it would burry their friendship. Ruin who they were for each other. But John didn't know how long his super-body could take before he just simply _had to_ proposition the Commander.

The occasion in which it happened wasn't even planned. 

John just met the Commander in her chambers taking her to dinner but arriving a couple of minutes too early. Early enough to catch a recruit who was just leaving her quarters, almost two heads taller than him, but with a disgusting smile on his face…

And to make matters worse, the Commander was only stepping out of the shower, hair still damp a little from the cleaning bots.

"John, you're early."

"As the stripper leaving your room would indicate. Tell me, was he born yesterday, or the day before?" John was smiling when he said this so that he could maybe sell it as a joke, but he wasn't sure Alan wouldn't know it was a lie.

"I'm not in the pedophile business, thank you very much for asking. I only fuck recruits if they were old first, just so you know," she said, now glaring daggers at him, quickly discarding the towel and gathering her clothes. "And if they were, I don't see what's your problem."

"Maybe that I was too, an Oldie, your best pal, or at least that's what you've told me, and you never had sex with me," John blurted out the truth, but realizing how being jealous wasn't sexy at all, he was forced to try to diminish that by adding to his previous sentence. "You didn't even try! I would have probably said no, for the sake of our friendship, but it's almost as if you're just humiliating me doing it with everybody else, and never even fake-offer it to me."

"Well, it's exactly because what you've said. Because of our friendship, John," the Commander's fierce gaze seemed to soften somewhat, now fully dressed and coming up close to him. "It wouldn't be smart."

"Maybe I don't care."

"And you also knew me as someone different."

"Maybe I don't care about that either," John answered something via the BrainPal link he could have never bought himself in real life to say out loud. Maybe even some of his emotions were sent over to the Commander's side as well because the next thing he knew he was in the Commander's bed, and she was riding him.

It was the best sex he ever had, and ever since he came to space and was reborn, and saw how people like the Commander switched up their partners quite often, he was following the same set of rules, so he didn't abstain at all.

But after, regret washed over him like rain. He wanted to take it back, but couldn't.

Alan, who always was his biggest support, now wouldn't be able to support him. Most of their jokes were out on the window too. And it was lucky if they could just act if they forgot it, by not ruining it trying to get into a relationship that would never work out, but leave them to hate each other's guts in the end.

"Remember Ruiz telling us gays we shouldn't confess in the heat of the battle?" the Commander laughed as if it was a found memory. "Well, I find myself only following his advice when it's already too late, in a sense, but I have to tell you."

"You're not human, but a rare species that eat male brain after sex."

John's note made her chuckle, which was a good thing. Not all of their ties were severed, not just yet at least.

"I wish," she just said. "But I feel like I have to tell you, John, even if it's too late for it… Even as a guy, I liked you. I never told you, because it was clear I didn't have any chance with you, not the way I was, and not with all the hot women throwing themselves on you anyway. But I always was aware of you and your thoughts, even without BrainPal, probably. And when I got my new body, all I could think about was that maybe I could use it to be with you in a way I could never have before. I kept waiting for you for 8 years, but then…"

"Then, you realized that Special Forces recruits were that much hotter," John said, remembering back to the competition that had just left before he arrived, and also trying to get out of this confession, for as unbelievable it was, it sounded like the Commander was doing just that. Confessing to him.

"Then when you arrived, you barely believed I was me, and you were… still depressed, and maybe grieving the loss of your wife for the second time still, because only you in the whole universe could have been just so lucky to lose her quite differently twice. That, and I also didn't want to risk our friendship, so I buried it. But you have a right to know. The reason why I didn't want to have sex with you while I could so easily switch everybody else around because I was afraid it would mean more to me than with anybody else."

John just listened speechless for a while, until registering he was positively staring at this female Alan and tried to get a grip.

"But now that we've passed this fear, without it becoming reality, maybe we should see if the kitchen has still some food left after Tom."

"It's… Hell, it's even worse than I thought," the Commander hid her face in her palms. "I think I wanted to get it out of my system by doing it without making a big deal out of it, but I only… John, I think I'm in love with you."

John just closed his eyes, trying to wake up or disappear. In every direction he could see this conversation was going, he thought he'd lose Alan either way.

"I think I love you too," he decided to not try to hide his emotions behind a joke, this once, opening his eyes to look into Alan's. "But that's precisely why we shouldn't-"

"I get it," Alan said, almost too fast. "I was thinking the same thing."

But they knew each other too long, and John could almost feel disappointment coming off of her in waves, even if he checked, and it wasn't coming from her BrainPal.

He wasn't wrong. It was a disappointment, because never again did he have the permission to enter the Commander's quarters or was invited to dinners or night talks or stargazing by her.

By now, he was a solider what seemed all his life, a duty that had kept him alive, along with the Immortalism technology, and… maybe even a year passed, when one day Alan, as a man appeared in front of him, very much as John has always known him, but a timid smile.

"I chose to change my body back with my next death. So maybe we can be real friends again?" he told Alan after a very nice dinner where neither of them ate, they were so busy talking and catching up with each other.

Even if they missed a lot in the time that had passed, Alan was never in the same sense a stranger to John as Jane compared to Kathy had been. They picked up where they had left off just before ruining everything.

"Yeah, I don't know how difficult it's for your sex life, but I'm glad to have you back," John said, ignoring the screaming voice in his mind that was his own that he was lying.

Afraid that if he told Alan that if it was him, John wouldn't mind doing it with a man either, and they'd never talk again. And never seemed a long time even for an Immortalism user soldier as well.

"I still have my skills, so I think I'm going to be just fine," Alan laughed, and it was great because he seemed to be relaxed with John again. "But I'm dying to show you something."

So, there they were again, looking at constellations as if their break never happened, yet John had nightmares about it happening again.

It was about the time when he settled down to be a stay-at-Base-Commander himself as well, though, spending every dinner with Alan that he began to fear the pull between them so much he sometimes avoided Alan rather than risk making the same mistake again.

And either Alan didn't notice, or just as he did before, took it by only reacting on the inside because he always just kept feeding John with interesting stories and jokes and the occasional side of physics, never once noting John's absences of complaining.

Then, they were back to looking at the stars, one night, when Alan announced.

"I think I'll name a constellation of you. Not that anybody uses this reference that I'm making, but for me it makes sense."

"Am I so important?" John just asked, willing he didn't, trying to tell his speedily beating heart that Alan only did it because they were friends, and he was close to ruining it, but if they were friends indeed, then he should be able to sell it as a joke, so not everything was lost yet, maybe.

"You have served the CDF for 15 years now, and still going. Most die or retire by now. It's ought to be commemorated in some way, and knowing you, you'd nag me forever to name a star or two after you anyway," Alan just said, smiling as well. "Would you like to see?"

John did, and Alan showed him. It was such a perfect moment, out of the movies nobody in space watched anymore, not even the ones who used to be old. Technology left movies in the past now, even on Earth's standards.

"So, you see, your constellation has at least 3 habitable planets around two stars that I predict will still exist for a couple hundred thousand years," Alan finished the explanation. "If we live to celebrate our 25 birthday, by then maybe we'd have the technology to skip directly to one of the planets on our official leave and see how it is in real life. A mystery vacation, maybe even taking the Old farts with us, if they behave."

John laughed and loved the idea.

Also, he was tempted now more than ever just to kiss Alan, but learning from his previous experience, he didn't. He couldn't. The price to pay for such a simple act was too much, no matter how it seemed inevitable.

Only when Alan as himself started dating Tom of all people did John's torture and happiness in one of a mood take a deep dive. He could take the jealousy of the other recruits because they didn't matter.

But Tom was part of the Old Farts. Tom had an arrangement with Alan before, even if they were accompanied by Susan back then, now they weren't. And if was overwhelmingly devastating to think Alan could make it work with someone when with John them having sex only once destroyed almost everything.

John didn't know whether to sink into a deep depression, or just to do something stupid, and confess. Just burst through the door while Tom was with Alan and declare ownership of the latter as only a member of a barbaric space-race would.

Then, to make matters "worse", Harry died a natural death but was deemed a hero nonetheless, and only within months of his revival, married Maggie, which disrupted the balance between the Old Farts group.

Not to mention, left John thinking Tom and Alan could do the same, at any time. He tried to ignore even the thought of it so much, he almost managed to believe he wasn't jealous.

Until, one day they were looking at the stars through Alan's telescope again, and Tom appeared as well, ruining the time John had so far always alone with Alan.

"Teach me something about what you two are doing here, please," he said, laying a kiss on Alan's lips, as well as bringing drinks for all three of them.

But the drink tasted like ash in John's mouth, as well as he felt his anger rising. Even if John wasn't a typical hothead, and even if he accepted that Tom and Alan were good together, and after what they have all been through, they deserved some happiness, those only seemed empty ideas to him by then.

"Excuse me, but if I didn't have a perfectly constructed bowel, I'd think I ate something bad and thought I was going to be sick," John just stood, not entirely lying, because, despite his perfectly engineered body, he did feel sick. Only, he _knew_ it wasn't because of anything he ate.

Later, he dodged Alan anytime he invited John to stargaze again, determined to never join him.

But then, the next incarnation around, Alan must have chosen to be a woman again, because he didn't use BrainPal, he just used continuous knocking on John's door, and was in a woman's body once again, when he decided to open it.

"I broke it up with Tom. Do you want me in this form at all or not, John?" she just asked, sounding pissed. "I gave it up so that we could pretend as if nothing happened, but then you also ignored me as a guy."

"I--" not that John was left to speak. Not until Alan, as a woman now, didn't guide them through three rounds of so hot-hot sex that even the super-body of John has felt spent afterward.

"So? I have already told you how I feel, and I must confess, I'd take even fuckbuddies over not seeing you at all, John," Alan then just said.

"I… I can't be your fuckbuddy," John said, making her just grimace at him, and gather her discarded clothes. "I mean… I like you too much, Alan. Girl or guy, I wanted you, but I also didn't want to ruin our friendship…"

"So you just ceased to talk to me at all," Alan froze in her tracks to gather her clothes. "Fucking A, John."

"No, it's… You were so happy with Tom-"

"Maybe I could have been," Alan sighed, now sitting back on John's bed. "If I had never met you. And he hadn't ruined our time together, which was meant for just the two of us."

John's heart, a heart which wasn't his own, and he didn't consider for such a long time, leaped, hearing those words.

"I… was pissed at Tom as well," John now told Alan, bringing his naked body to sit next to her. "But I stopped coming because it never was enough. Just as only having sex would never be enough. Only a real relationship with all its ups and downs would suffice, but I'm also… We'd be a week in when you'd find a fault in me, and destroy the backup of my brain just to never see me again…"

"I don't have the rank to delete anyone," Alan just said.

"Ah, it was an attempt on a joke."

"If you want to express you love me, you'd better be serious about it, or I won't listen to you," Alan, however just gathered her clothes, and left.

Which, ultimately, led John to express his love for Alan in ways that were still talked about in the CDF Special Forces Base, even if the two heroes of their tales no longer lived there.

Rumor had it, they had spent many reincarnations together there, before retiring and living out a human life in piece somewhere else.

Others tell a story where they visited their stars, and still reincarnate there, Alan switching between his two forms, John enjoying it both the same, the two of them reigning an otherwise undiscovered universe, without anyone else around.

Some others yet again say their minds are still in the databases of CDF, and they are only revived together from time to time if not only one, but two fearless Commanders are needed, to fight together, otherwise existing in a computerized space of a digital world, but still inseparable.

Maybe all of those theories had some truth to them, as it happened because it was possible to have multiple copies of them, giving them very different fates. 

Yet after investigating the diary of Harry, who became a world-famous scientist, and left side notes about them, the only thing that seemed certain was that they never ended up hating each other. 

"Never, was a long time even for a human, but for two officers using Immortalism tech, it is a pure miracle," Harry wrote. "Yet if anyone, those two spent so much time trying to get it right, that they deserve to have it."


End file.
